A multi-display system, which has a plurality of display apparatuses arrayed in a vertical direction and in a horizontal direction to constitute a large screen, has become popular as a picture display system in recent years. The multi-display system is increasing in the range of application as a public display for displaying adds on the street and displaying in real time various information in public places, such as an exhibition and a sports facility.
Generally, to display one picture using a multi-display system, each display apparatus divides an input picture signal and displays a partial picture corresponding to a position of the apparatus on an enlarged scale.
Note that a multi-display system, in which an identical picture signal is input to a plurality of display apparatuses, and each display apparatus divides the input picture signal to display a partial picture, is also disclosed in, for example, Patent Document 1 (JP2012-198446A).
In the above-described multi-display system, to change the layout (display layout) of partial pictures to be displayed by the display apparatuses, a setting value needs to be changed using an on-screen display (OSD) function or the like for each display apparatus. For example, to swap partial pictures displayed by two display apparatuses, respective picture positions of the partial pictures to be displayed by the two display apparatuses need to be changed. An operation of changing the display layout is cumbersome and requires much effort by the user.
In order to reduce such effort, for example, a technique for automatically changing a display layout according to the number of pictures input, the resolution of a displayed picture, the positions of people around the system, and the like is disclosed in Patent Document 1 described above. In the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, however, each display apparatus needs to include a high-throughput CPU (Central Processing Unit) or the like and include a sensor, a camera, or the like to acquire position information of a person around the system. This leads to an increase in the overall cost of the multi-display system.